


Appetite

by anahita



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Codependency, Disability, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Season/Series 03, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:31:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anahita/pseuds/anahita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will asked Hannibal why he’d chosen Bueno Aires of all cities. </p><p>“I’ve never been there,” Hannibal replied calmly as two attendants loaded their luggage onto the ship docked at the port in Conakry. They’d been staying at the Hotel Mariador Palace the last two weeks. It was time to move on. </p><p>Will didn’t need Hannibal to say anything more. They would live in Bueno Aires because Hannibal had never been there with anyone else, had never thought to visit, and it would be as new for him as for Will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appetite

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta-ed!

Will asked Hannibal why he’d chosen Bueno Aires of all cities.

“I’ve never been there,” Hannibal replied calmly as two attendants loaded their luggage onto the ship docked at the port in Conakry. They’d been staying at the Hotel Mariador Palace the last two weeks. It was time to move on. 

Will didn’t need Hannibal to say anything more. They would live in Bueno Aires because Hannibal had never been there with anyone else, had never thought to visit, and it would be as new for him as for Will. 

Hannibal rolled Will’s wheelchair up the gangway. They didn’t stay to wave goodbye to the people on shore. They spent the first of hours of the long journey napping on the narrow bed. There would be dinner with the Captain later in the evening. One had to keep up appearances. 

 

Will had gotten used to being alone with Hannibal. Sometimes it was weeks where they would hardly talk to anyone but each other. In Freetown, they’d slept in a luxury yacht that swayed in the water all night. Someone had recognized Hannibal a couple of months earlier when they were still in Spain. Hannibal was more cautious since then.

Will had let him know, very early in their journey together, that he didn’t want to know where they were going, but if possible, he would like to stay somewhere they could live for years. He was tired.

“Of course,” Hannibal had said and started making plans. Hannibal was good at making plans.

Now they couldn’t avoid a certain amount of social interaction. They were on a ro-ro ship carrying more cargo than people. Including them there were nine passengers on board. There was an inherent mystery in two gentlemen traveling together on a cargo ship; one of whom was in a wheelchair and scarred badly. They had to be very careful.

The good news was that most of the crew didn’t pay them much attention. They kept mainly to themselves. The ship would often be hours waiting for nightfall on some coastline. They often docked at the port close to midnight. The cargo would be loaded or disembarked. There was a remarkable amount of activity while they were trying for sleep.

Once Will woke up in the middle of the night to an empty bed. He rolled himself onto the wheelchair and pushed out the door. Hannibal was talking to a man in French right outside. The man saw Will and said something in a low voice. Hannibal smiled coldly until he was gone.

“He said he’ll get me some red carp when we dock,” Hannibal told Will when they got in bed.

“We can go get it ourselves,” Will replied sleepily. He watched Hannibal’s hands before closing his eyes.

“Whatever you want,” Hannibal said.

“Whatever I want, huh,” Will huffed darkly. He turned his back to Hannibal. It took a lot of effort on the narrow bed with his broken leg and fractured ankle.

 

A French couple who had boarded the ship at Le Havre were very friendly with them. Hannibal spoke French like a native and was a kind translator for Will. They carried on a loud conversation at dinner.

“How long have you been together?” Adrien asked Will in halting English.

“Oh about four years,” Will replied with brittle smile. “Has it been four years?”

“Almost five,” Hannibal said quietly.

“Yes that’s right,” Will said. “Almost five.”

“We’ve been together,” Aime paused to count the years on her hands, “eighteen years. Eighteen years!”

“That’s lovely,” Hannibal said with smile. “Time enough to grow together.”

“Time enough for that and more,” Will mused. Hannibal gave him a warm look.

Later Hannibal rolled Will down the deck. The moon was bright in the sky. The ship cut through the water leaving white foam behind.

“It’s our anniversary,” Will said after they’d been silent for what felt like serene hours.

Hannibal looked up at the moon with a slight smile. “It is isn’t it?”

 

They both woke together near dawn. Will was soaked in sweat and unable to move. Hannibal picked him up after wrapping his cast in plastic and carried him to the bathroom. They’d booked the second best cabin in the ship after the Captain’s. It had a room with a bed and another room with a sofa and a view. The bathroom had a tub.

Hannibal had filled it with hot water. He lowered Will into it carefully.

Will was not completely present. He’d been in the woods outside his house in Wolf Trap. His dogs were barking in the distance. He’d followed their voices out deeper and deeper until he’d come to a pond. He’d fallen into it suddenly as if pushed. He was drowning. Water in his mouth. He reached out and grabbed a pale, heavy body. He scrambled back shouting and bumped into another body behind him. He grew gills and a tail. Soon his teeth protruded and rose out of his mouth like antlers. He would eat the world.

“You said you didn’t have my appetite,” Hannibal spoke into the silence. He brushed Will’s hair off his face.

“It’s different from yours,” Will said dreamily. “I gorge myself and make myself sick.”

“I’m not always hungry,” Hannibal answered after a moment.

“You can always eat,” Will said while looking down at his own hands.

“Very true,” Hannibal replied calmly. “I’m so rarely satiated.”

“I’d like to feed you,” Will told him with longing in his voice, “with my own hands.”

Hannibal’s breath quickened. “I’d like that.”

 

In Bueno Aires, Hannibal rented them a two floor apartment in Recoleta on Avenida Córdoba. It was in one of the older buildings.

“I would have liked to get a house for you,” Hannibal told Will when they got on the old elevator. “We’ll look into it if you like the city.” 

“I like it,” Will said after a moment. “It’s the right amount of old and new.”

They unlocked the doors. Hannibal had closed the deal in the morning and told the real estate agent they didn’t need anything but the keys. 

The floor to ceiling windows were open. Light that blinded Will for a moment. The furniture was covered in white sheets. 

“It was more convenient to get a furnished place,” Will noted after a glance at Hannibal’s face, “but you’re displeased.”

“I would like our own things,” Hannibal said. He watched Will pull off a sheet from the dining table. 

Dust rose up in a cloud around them. Will coughed. 

“Our house,” Will said with a sardonic smile. “Our things.”

“Yes,” Hannibal said softly. “You sound bitter.”

“You’re funny,” Will laughed. “What are we playing at?”

“I’m not playing,” Hannibal told him. 

Will yanked off the sheet from the piano. 

 

It didn’t take very long for Hannibal to find something to do and establish the right kind of contacts. He was going by the name of Dr. Hund while working for  Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina. The had a vast collection of sheet music that they were archiving and digitalizing. The man in charge of the process had mysteriously disappeared and the library had been left scrambling to replace him. Mr. Hund had stepped in with just the right qualifications and abilities. A German who could speak Spanish like a native. A recent addition to the city. 

“I don’t get enough time to look through the scores,” Hannibal said a day or two after he started working. He brought back sheets of music wrapped in plastic and played the piano in the evenings. 

“Stealing sheet music is very tame compared to your other crimes,” Will noted from the couch. He was reading while Hannibal played something playful. “The work you’ve chosen is also very tame.” 

“We mustn’t lead the hounds to us,” Hannibal said. He was humming. “This is meant to be played by a orquesta típica.”

“Right,” Will said absently. “Do you know how to tango?”

“I could learn,” Hannibal told Will while looking at him. 

 

They had a doctor’s appointment later in the week. There were X-Rays and questions.

“You had surgery,” Dr. Matthews noted. He was a British ex-pat but his accent was all but eroded. He’d lived in Bueno Aires the last twenty years.

“Yes,” Will said after a moment. “An open reduction.”

“Were there complications?” Dr. Matthews asked slowly.

“There were new fractures because of the open reduction,” Will said. “I had to go back under the knife.”

“Was there a gap between the two surgeries?” Dr. Matthews asked with a raised eyebrow.

“A month in between because of extenuating circumstances,” Will told him. He could see that the doctor wanted to ask what kind of circumstances would delay a necessary surgery so long. He stayed silent.

“Well, the good news is that the second surgery seems to have been successful,” Dr. Matthews told them. “I should be able to take the cast off in two weeks.”

“That’s great,” Will smiled up at Hannibal.

“You’re in the wheelchair because of the bimalleolar fracture in the right ankle,” Dr. Matthews noted. “That will take longer to recover. You’ll have to use crutches.”

“I’ll just hobble along until I’m well,” Will said.

 

They threw a dinner party a week before the cast came off.

“Maybe it would have been better after I got my legs back,” Will said while watching waiters arrange the wine glasses on the counter.

“No,” Hannibal said abruptly. “You’ll need time to recover afterwards.”

“From what?” Will laughed. “Being able to walk again? Being able to run?”

Hannibal went still. The doorbell rang downstairs.

“Someone’s early,” Will said breathlessly as he rolled out of the kitchen. “I’ll see to them.”

 

Will described the accident that broke his leg. “I was thrown off the boat while we were sailing around Cape Horn.”

“Are you a sailor?” asked Commissioner-General Diaz of the Metropolitan police.

“I dabble,” Will said with a bright smile.

“I’ve heard that the Cape is one of the most difficult sailing routes in the world,” the Commissioner said. “I’ve dreampt of attempting it. In another life, perhaps.”

“Nonsense,” said Delia Vazquez. She couldn’t be less than eighty. “We’re young yet.”

“The waves around Cape Horn are treacherous,” Will noted while staring down into his wine glass. “Rogue waves that rise up suddenly and engulf you.”

“Is that what happened to you?” asked a young woman who was watching Will intently.

“No,” Will drained his glass. “We were lucky.”

“You broke your leg and you say you were lucky,” the woman had a lovely laugh. Will found himself smiling.

Hannibal came and laid a hand on Will’s shoulder. Will suppressed his shiver.

“Commissioner,” Hannibal said. “There’s an officer at the door asking for you.”

 

The Commissioner turned out to be stranger than Will could have predicted.

There had been another murder of a prominent member of Bueno Aires society. A man named Roberto Rey that apparently all their guest knew intimately. His body had been found in the Basilica de San Jose de Flores, arranged with the body of doppelgänger who was wearing his clothes and perfume. The doppelgänger was an unidentified man who’d been dead for days while Rey had only disappeared a few hours ago. 

The Commissioner offered the whole party a chance to see the bodies. He could arrange it easily. The intense interest that the murder aroused was followed soon by fear and excitement.

“We couldn’t!” exclaimed old Mrs. Vasquez in a scandalized tone. “We really couldn’t!”

“Why not?” the Commissioner asked her. “Unless the host has an objection?”

“We should eat first,” Hannibal noted after a moment. “Our appetite might take a turn for the worse later.”

“Of course,” the Commissioner rubbed his hands together. “Let’s do it that way.”

 

“Mr. Hund here has been a teacher all his life from what I understand,” said Sara the woman who had made Will smile earlier. “What about you, Mr. Weizen?”

“Will was a psychiatrist until just recently,” Hannibal said before Will could open his mouth. “He can get into any mind.”

“That’s a tall claim,” the Commissioner laughed. “What about the mind of a killer?”

 

All the fashionable people got into their cars laughing. The excitement of a late night excursion to see the dead. Will could see now why Hannibal had always found people like them the most contemptible of all humanity. Deserving of his extra attention. 

Of course when they got to the Basilica, the Commissioner wanted to see what Will thought. “Try it,” he coaxed. “Let’s see what happens.”

Will saw everything.

He was walking through the streets looking for someone. Two people so different and so similar he wept with hunger. He never forgot a face. The rich came to him for a specific service for which he was renowned. He knew all the people worth knowing and he both despised them and envied them.

“He wrapped his hands around their necks,” Will said, “making sure not to damage anything else. He works with his hands. He’s an artisan. Highly skilled. He knew all the people he killed personally. He has an eidetic memory. He never forgets a face, a smell, or a conversation.”

“They were certainly strangled,” the Commissioner replied. “And you’re right that there was no other damage to the bodies. I can’t confirm the rest.”

“He’s still here,” Will noted calmly. He leaned down to smell the bodies. Lilac and orange blossom. “He’s a perfumer.”

“What?” the Commissioner glanced around at the audience then outside. “Here?”

“Yes,” Will said and rolled his wheelchair back towards Hannibal.

“A perfumer,” Hannibal muttered with a smile. “He creates a specific scent for each pair.”

“Can we go?” Will asked. “I’m tired.”

 

They were both silent as Will walked through the apartment barefoot. The hospital had been an ordeal for both of them.

Will had to watch the ankle of his right foot still. He used a crutch as he went from the kitchen to the dinning room and back to the kitchen.

Hannibal stood by the counter pouring wine into glasses. Will watched him from a safe distance. It had been ages since there was any safe distance between them.

One of the glasses filled with red wine slipped and shattered on the ground. Hannibal stood very still. His eyes were almost black. He took a deliberate sip from the remaining glass and then held it out for Will.

Will looked down at the broken glass. He dropped the crutch against a cabinet. He walked over the glass while gripping the side of the granite counter. Glass crunched under his feet, wine and blood mixing together, but he barely flinched. His mouth was open, breath coming louder, until it was the only thing both of them could hear. He gulped down the wine in one swallow.

“Let me look at that for you,” Hannibal said courteously and carried Will to the bedroom.


End file.
